


The Best Part of Waking Up…is definitely not Spacer’s Choice Coffee

by viveriveniversumvivusvici55



Series: The Care and Keeping of Moronsexuals [3]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Capitalism exists everywhere, First Meetings, Himbo, M/M, Max is still moronsexual, Seduced by Coffee, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viveriveniversumvivusvici55/pseuds/viveriveniversumvivusvici55
Summary: Unreliable Beverages is the worst name for a coffee shop Max has ever heard, but the OSI doesn't supply the church with good coffee for their vicars and he needs a drink.The hot barista is just a bonus.
Relationships: Male Captain/Maximillian DeSoto, The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Series: The Care and Keeping of Moronsexuals [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728808
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	The Best Part of Waking Up…is definitely not Spacer’s Choice Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if this is needed or not, but this idea snuck up behind me and clubbed me over the head. Whether it turns into something longer or not...I don't know. We'll see.

Vicar Maximillian DeSoto knows three things.

  1. He still hasn't been able to find an English copy of Bakonu's journal on the state of being as part of his philosophy dissertation.
  2. He's about a third of a way through a Rosetta Stone course on French, which has only been achieved by sheer force of will because French is an abominable language and he can't understand anything he's saying, and that is nowhere near enough to translate complex philosophical concepts. 
  3. Spending all of his free time trying to translate it himself (because Google Translate is useless in this case) means that he hasn't slept in four days, and he's running on sheer force of will and the terrible coffee that is regularly donated by Spacer's Choice to the church.



(Spacer's Choice is certainly not known for its coffee. It tastes like dirty asphalt and turpentine, coating your tongue with a tar taste that has to be scrubbed off to disappear. However, it's the cheapest coffee around and none of the other monolith corporations donate coffee - Rizzo's just donates soda that Max hands off to the children at summer camps, and C&B's coffee tastes like bacon - so drink it he does).

But now, Max is out of coffee. All of the coffee. Regular grounds, instant grounds, the beans that he grinds up in a food processor at home, even the coffee flavoured creamer...it's all gone. He'd switch to black tea, but every time he considered it, he hears his father's voice in the back of his head about how tea is for the English, not the Americans, and it puts him right off, even if it's a fallacy. So, with bleary eyes and trembling fingers, Max trades his cassock for a dark blue button-up shirt, slides the collar in place, and hauls a leather jacket over his shoulders. His research materials are shoved into a donated messenger bag, and he grabs his wallet. He is going on a quest. For coffee. A decent, tolerable cup of coffee so that he can get through what he can this afternoon. 

(And if this place is remotely decent, perhaps he'll work here instead of his cramped little apartment near the church. This place, at the very least, should smell better than the stale fish smell that permeates the entire building.)

The cold wind outside is soothing. Max takes a moment to stop and close his eyes, letting it wake him up a little more. Law, when was the last time he went outside that wasn't a trip between the church and home? Days ago, definitely. Probably when he last went out to get groceries, having bought as much as a vicar's salary would let him because he knew he was about to zone into his work and not see the light of day for a while. After simply breathing for a moment, recentering himself, he sets off again. Coffee, coffee, coffee, where would he find a good place to get coffee? Not one of the corporate shops - certainly not Spacer's Choice again, he likes his taste buds - even though those are the predominant ones. They keep buying up the independent ones, using their regular clientele to get more business. But there are still independent shops out there, if he can find one.

He doesn't know how many blocks he walks. He loses track, zoning in and out of his surroundings, only focusing on any shop that has a chalk sign outside. It's early afternoon - there's plenty open - but despite his desperation, Max has standards. On he walks, then, in search of his cup of coffee.

He nearly trips over the shop - or rather, the uneven sidewalk in front of it, the crack filled with dandelions, leading him to kick the chalk sign over. Instinctually, Max kneels to pick it up and reads the neat words scrawled on the sign. 

**If you were ground coffee, you'd be espresso because you are so fine _._**

Max groans and looks up at the sign. It's a tacky neon sign, but right now, it's the most beautiful thing Max has ever seen. _Unreliable Beverages._ He sets the sign back in place and pushes his way inside. The smell of fresh ground beans hits his nose and the sound of steam blowing out of a cappuccino machine is on par with a heavenly choir. With a sigh of relief, he walks over to the counter. There's no line, so he walks right up to the cash register, resting his hands on the counter before it, and hangs his head for a moment to gather his thoughts.

"Well, damn, if there was a universal picture of 'person who needs coffee like air', I'd bet that it'd be yours," comes a voice across the counter, "Am I right?"

Max looks up, bleary eyes slowly focusing in on the barista in front of him, and...

Oh. 

_Oh._

The man behind the counter smiles with the warmth of a summer's day, grey eyes twinkling in unison. He's tall, so tall that Max has to crane his head back to meet his eyes, but it doesn't feel threatening. On the contrary, this man is a beacon of friendly politeness, lean fingers drying out a mug with an ostentatious design on it. Something about him makes Max think of a golden retriever, but the rest of him is just trying hard not to look down the lean body he can see through the flannel shirt and apron.

A tick in favour of this shop: they have pretty baristas.

"You are," Max manages, his voice coming out more gravelly than usual, "but please tell me it's not Spacer's Choice."

The barista - Teagan, his name tag says - snorts. "Law, no, Mr. Vicar. We get the beans from a private farm down south. Ada's family knows people. No corporations here."

" _Damn straight!"_ A shout comes from the back rooms.

Teagan sighs, but the smile stays warm. "So, large coffee, dark as we can get it?"

"Make it a double espresso," Max mutters. 

"Room for cream?"

...what the hell, he's already indulging today. "Yes. Not a whole lot of room, though."

"Of course. Mr. Vicar," Teagan makes some notes on a slip of paper and puts it down to press buttons on the cash register. "Got a name for me?"

Max sighs softly. "You can call me _anything_ as long as you give me the damn coffee."

Teagan laughs. "Got it, Vicar. Your espresso will be up in a coupla minutes. That'll be 20 bits."

Max hands over a corresponding cartridge, which Teagan clicks into the register and hands back shortly after. Max manages a soft "thank you" before making his way over to a large table in the corner and making himself at home. Out comes a copy of Bakonu's Journal, along with Max's French notes, his translation, and the various notes he has made on what he has translated. It's all neatly handwritten on lined paper as he doesn't own a laptop - vow of poverty and all - and when he's done, he'll type it up at the computers at the college. For now, though, it's piles and piles of notebooks, and with the promise of caffeine on the horizon, Max begins working again. One of the other students had told him about a copy of Camus's writings with the French and English side by side, so he's using it as a reference material. At some point, a coffee cup materializes by his hand and he starts drinking it. Nothing else matters, other than the work. 

And...the new environment works. He's making headway. After hours that felt like he was slamming against a concrete wall hoping it would break, he's finally getting some of the key concepts. The professor has office hours tomorrow - there might be some more reference material to be found there, especially with some of the keywords he's worked out - and finally, Max looks up from his papers.

...when did it get dark outside? And now that Max thinks about it, he should have finished his coffee by now. How is it still full?

"Welcome back, preacherman," a charming voice calls from nearby and Max looks over to see Teagan wiping down the tables. "Never seen anyone put their face so deep in a book that they damn near got ink on their lamps. Didn't even hear me call for you to get your coffee."

That sounds about right. "How...long have I been here?" Max is almost hesitant to ask.

Teagan stops washing to look at the clock and counts on his fingers. "Well, you got here right after Parvati went home and Felix just took off to go watch the Rangers play Hammersmith, so...seven hours?"

Max blinks in surprise and then winces at the dryness of his eyes. He rubs them with the back of a hand, wincing. "I hope I didn't keep you past closing."

"Don't you worry, preacher. We keep all kinds of weird hours. I'll be here for a while yet." Teagan finishes wiping down table and moves to the next one. "Policy is to be open for all the people that wanna be out late but not have to get drunk. See all kinds here. Students too."

A smile creases Max's face. "A sound policy. Your manager is to be commended for their altruistic business sense." Now that he knows about it, Max has a few parishoners he might send this way.

Teagan, meanwhile, frowns. "Forgive me, preacher..."

Now, where are his manners? "Vicar Maximillian Desoto, at your service, or Vicar Max, if you are the sort that prefers brevity."

"Right. Vicar Max," Teagan begins again, "I'm sure you're all kinds of smart and genuisical, but I definitely ain't and I don't rightly know what you just told me, but it sounded important, so would you be able to say it a little slower for me?"

Oh Law, he's an idiot. The instinct to sound condescending rises in Max's throat, but there is something about the earnestness of Teagan's face that shoots it down. And reminds him exactly how much he loves dumb men that hang off of his every word. "I meant that what your shop does is a good thing to help people, while still making money, and your manager should be told that they are doing well."

Teagan's face lights up like the sun. "Thanks! I mean, you just told him, so thanks!"

Max's eyebrows rise up. " _You're_ the manager?"

"Well, yeah. I ain't the first. That was a fella named Alex who up and took off a while back. I kinda got thrown into the job, but he left all his rules and policies and such, so I've been doing the best with what I got. But I always liked helpin' people, so it felt real good to keep doing it."

Ah, yes, now Max is thinking of that golden retriever image again as he looks at Teagan's smiling face, his blond hair shining in the low light. "Well, you are a good man, Teagan."

Teagan goes back to washing and Max starts gathering up his notes to go. He's going to be awake for a while, thanks to the sheer volume of coffee he consumed. "I believe I owe you for more than a few refills."

"Nah, s'all good. Besides, means you can come back later and pay me, right?"

Max raises an eyebrow. "Perhaps."

"'sides, I swapped you out for decaf about an hour ago. You'll get to bed all normal like soon."

Now that Teagan mentions it, his eyes do feel a little heavy. "...thank you. A bit presumptive...guessing that I would want that."

Teagan stops washing to look at Max. "Parvati, one of the girls that works here - she gets real anxiouslike all the time. Keeps her up sometimes with all the worrying. I know what it looks like when someone's been up for days and needs a good night's sleep, Max."

After a moment where Max considers yelling at him, he lets the goodwill quiet him down. "You are a good man, Teagan."

"Can I ask what you were working on?" 

"If you do, I'm not going to leave for another hour," Max says with a half smile. "And there will be a lot of big words."

"I don't mind if you're not too tired. And I might be able to guess a couple. I'm dumb but I ain't _too_ stupid."

Max weighs the prospect of a good night's sleep with the thought of a kindred spirit, and decides that it's been a while since he spent time with someone genuinely interested in what he had to say without money, responsibility, or academic debate on their minds. "Then, by all means, pull up a chair, Mr. Teagan, and let's talk philosophy."

By the time Max leaves, the moon is high in the cloudless sky and neon signs light the sidewalk as he heads home. He is tired, drained from work and from social conversation, but there is a lightness to his step that he hasn't had in some time. Teagan is a good listener, and even if he is too dense to wrap his head around all of the philosophical concepts that Max speaks about, he does his best to follow along. He is kind and genuine - a rare find in these selfish times - and not to mention a sight of sore eyes. And he makes a damn good cup of coffee. 

Max will be going there a lot more often. Just for the coffee, of course. 

...and for a smile. Or two. Or twenty.

**Author's Note:**

> More ideas that I couldn't shove in (but will maybe expand on):
> 
> \- Alex Hawthorn, a business graduate, started Unreliable Beverages with Ada, a computer science graudate who lives off of the royalties of a GIS program she designed. She sources the beans through some family connections - a friend of a friend with a coffee plantation who refuses to sell to corporations. He had to skip town when some bad business connections came after him and Ada was desperate for a manager. Enter Teagan, a farmhand looking for big city work.
> 
> ...look, Ada was desperate. It just so happens that he rose to the occasion.
> 
> \- Teagan found Parvati at a small electronics repair shop. He gladly poached her so that she'd actually remember how to smile. He found Felix at a lacrosse game as the only fan put in the penalty box for starting a fight. He poached Felix too so he'd calm down.
> 
> \- Ellie and Nyoka are regulars. Ellie is still a doctor, although she is most likely a mafia doctor, and Nyoka runs a shooting range.


End file.
